Buckley, Money, a horrible monster and Catan

Townhall.com :: Columns :: Funding democracy by William F. Buckley - Mar 24, 2006

Bill considers the huge money already in Hillary's coffers. This must be in preparation for the Presidential election. Hillary as president is truly a frightening proposition - scary enough that I don't think it possible.

Anyway, he is worried that democracy is up for sale. No news there. But, as he says,

A few years ago we attempted financial reform, and more or less gave up, on the grounds that reform was inconsistent with individual liberties ... It all conduces to a queasy suspicion that the democratic ideal is up for sale.

This is akin to what Boortz has been saying for years. He thinks he got it from De Toqueville, but it seems to come from Alexander Tytler. I found it on Andrea Shea's quote page a site which I intend to examine further:

At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in the year 1787 Alexander Tytler, a Scottish history professor had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:

"A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can exist only until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury."

This is the inverse but not the opposite of what Soros and the like do. They buy their special influence both political and social whereas the poor must vote it. But, in our system money is not really that different from votes. Money in some way represents the ordered chaos and so son in a free market of ideas. The rich are so because people make them so by giving them their money. To give money is in some way to give assent.

We play Settlers of Catan. If I trade my resources with you and then you use them to build a road to my severe disinterest, well, that is my problem. I tacitly gave my assent for you to use those resources to do whatever you will. I have no right to complain.

Soros is a moronic fool. But, he should be free to use his money however he wishes, even to our severe disinterest. If he wishes to try to elect the Medusa, so be it.

Like all heroes, good people must fight the monsters evil men conjure.